Archive for September 2005
Conservative Links Crime Rate and Abortion of Black Babies
Bennett Under Fire for Remark on Crime and Black Abortions
By Brian Faler
Special to The Washington Post
Friday, September 30, 2005; Page A05
Democratic lawmakers and civil rights leaders denounced conservative commentator William J. Bennett yesterday for suggesting on his syndicated radio show that aborting black children would reduce the U.S. crime rate.
The former U.S. education secretary-turned-talk show host said Wednesday that “if you wanted to reduce crime, you could — if that were your sole purpose — you could abort every black baby in this country, and your crime rate would go down.” Bennett quickly added that such an idea would be “an impossible, ridiculous and morally reprehensible thing to do.” But, he said, “your crime rate would go down.”
Remainder of the article:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/co … 02126.html
UK’s First Muslim Lifestyle Mag Goes Mainstream
This is exciting news. A funny story, when we attended the Night of Remembrance Concert for Islamia School in October of 2003, Colleen and I met this very nice young man who worked on this magazine. He was sitting in front of us chatting with us before the show about the magazine and his trip to the US. The last song before the intermission was an incredibly moving one by Zain Bhikha - seriously folks I was sobbing (no exaggeration here). Anyway this nice young man turned around to chat with us some more during the intermission and, poor thing, encountered a blubbering female. I could not speak. He was so nice, he went and got a tissue for me.
UK’s First Muslim Lifestyle Mag Goes Mainstream
LONDON, September 30, 2005 (IslamOnline.net) – Emel, Britain’s first glossy Muslim lifestyle monthly, has gone mainstream to give a deep insight of Muslims, break cultural gaps, in addition to clearing misconceptions and stereotypes on Islam.
“We’re offering a window into Muslim communities, away from the clichés and stereotypes,” Sarah Joseph, editor and co-founder of emel, said in a press release e-mailed to IslamOnline.net.
“We aim to bridge the ever increasing gulf of misunderstanding and mistrust.”
The magazine, which has been running as a quarterly for two years, joined the mainstream media in Britain as a monthly, with the official launch taking place Thursday, September 29.
It includes features, commentaries and interviews, giving a deeper insight into today’s Muslims.
It also has a mix of alternative food, fashion, travel, gardening and design.
“We express the way Muslims are drawing on a rich cultural heritage and creating something relevant and positive for today’s world,” says Joseph.
“We believe it is vital to show everyday Muslims engaged in building a constructive future in Britain.”
In its first monthly edition, emel’s editorial discourses the way the Muslim magazine may be “a window, a door, a bridge” into the Muslim community, according to The Times Friday, September 30.
It also tackles slots explaining the Arabic roots of the word “magazine”, the Islamic influences behind the construction of St Paul’s, comment features slamming the British media coverage of the fallout from the July 7 London attacks and interviews with three Pakistani cricket players on how they keep up their fitness during the holy fasting month of Ramadan.
http://nationalzoo.si.edu/Animals/GiantPandas/
Check out the the baby panda at the National Zoo. It’s really cool. You can see mom and baby and get a report on the baby’s progress. Most of the time they are sleeping, but I did see Mom walk out of the camera range and then come back and curl up with the baby.
The giant panda cub is the first at the zoo to survive more than a few days. As of Sept. 27 he weighs about 10 pounds (4.5 kilograms), measures nearly 2 feet (60 centimeters) from head to tail and is beginning to crawl in circles but hasn’t started to walk. The panda was born on July 9.
A note at the site tells you that:
Due to very heavy traffic, you may not be able to view the cam. To allow more people to view it, sessions are limited to 15 minutes. If you are unable to connect, please try again later.
Repealing Posse Comitatus
Repealing Posse Comitatus Would Mean Iraq Here at Home
[i]by Dave Lindorff | http://www.thiscantbehappening.net/
George Bush has become a classic Johnny One Note: If there’s a problem, call out the troops.
That, of course, was his response to 9/11.
It was his belated response to the flooding of New Orleans too, you may recall. The first thing the president did when he finally left off his vacation and returned from his fund-raising event, was to get M-16-armed troops (and, apparently, Blackwater mercenaries with even heavier weaponry) into the city to start shooting to kill people who were desperately trying to survive.
Now, confronted with the lowest public support figures of his (or almost any) presidency, this singularly detached and inept president is proposing that Congress repeal the 127-year-old Posse Comitatus Act so that the Pentagon can send active duty troops into domestic crisis zones without even so much as an executive order.
Presumably the folks who came up with this horrible idea (it’s got Karl Rove’s greasy fingerprints all over it), figure that this plays to Bush’s “strength”–the carefully tended myth that this drug-and–alcohol addled Vietnam-era National Guard AWOL somehow knows how to be tough and to use military “assets”.
Lord knows where this idea gets its legs. He certainly hasn’t displayed any particular military leadership skills in his handling of military operations in Afghanistan and Iraq, which surely will become (like Hitler’s decisions not to invade Britain and to invade Russia) classic case studies in what not to do in military schools from the Virginia Military Institute to West Point for decades to come. But be that as it may, we should be doubly concerned about this very bad idea.
First of all, why would anyone want people who were trained to shoot off everything they’ve got in a 360-degree radius whenever they sense danger being sent into American neighborhoods to rescue people or to restore order? American troops have been firing off an average of 90,000 rounds of ammunition per soldier in Iraq, and at best they’ve killed maybe a few thousand insurgents (that would be one insurgent per 250 U.S. soldiers, or looked at another way, one insurgent per 22.5 million shells). Clearly these guys are not good at shooting enemies. What they have been pretty good at, unfortunately, is killing innocents. Hey, nobody’s counting (the U.S. occupation authorities won’t let anyone count), but the estimates for civilian deaths in Iraq caused largely by American forces range somewhere between 25,000 and 125,000–most likely the latter.
Are these the kind of guys you want coming into your neighborhood when you have a flood or a tornado?
I think not.
Then there’s the matter of our basic rights.
Remember those? No illegal search and seizure. No billeting of troops in homes. Freedom of speech and assembly. All those sacred Constitutionally-protected rights went down the toilet when Bush’s troops rolled into New Orleans. And that is what we can expect to see become routinized if this latest Bush/Rove scheme gets the nod from Congress.
Beyond that, one thing that has distinguished the U.S. from much of the rest of the world, and that has helped to preserve what democracy we have in this country, is that the army has remained very professional and removed from politics. There has not been a military coup in the U.S. since the country’s founding, and many military leaders thankfully have a strong distaste for involving the uniformed forces in that kind of thing.
That said, during the Nixon and Reagan administrations, there were well-documented plans developed (with names like Operation Garden Plot, and Rex Alpha) for establishing martial law in the nation, or in parts of the nation–something that it appears has also been going on in the bowels of the White House and the Pentagon during this president’s two terms.
The Posse Comitatus Act makes establishing military rule much harder to do. It gives those military officers who might want to resist martial law orders something to hang on to.
That bar to using the armed forces domestically should not be lightly tossed out just because of one example of incompetence by the White House and Homeland Security.
Punish the parents too
Sick people in this world. These ‘kids’ need to be severly punished, and their parents too.
Police: Boys Rip Classmates’ Clothes Off, Snap Photos
POSTED: 5:15 am EDT September 27, 2005
UPDATED: 9:24 am EDT September 27, 2005
Four Central Florida middle school students were arrested Monday for allegedly ripping off the clothes off classmates and then snapping photos with their cell phones, according to a Local 6 News report.
Investigators said the boys, ages 12, 13 and 14 years old, attacked the girls Friday at Tavares Middle School in Lake County, Fla., in the back of a school bus. The boys then allegedly groped the girls and took pictures of them.
Cindy Sheehan Arrested
Yup. Out in front of the White House. Quietly sitting on the sidewalk. Don’t they know civil wars have been started over a lot less than this. Now the media is going to have to start covering the protest. How arrogant. How unimaginative. Think I’ll go in and check CNN…..
“I would like to say to Cindy Sheehan and her supporters don’t be a group of unthinking lemmings. It’s not pretty,” said Mitzy Kenny of Ridgeley, W.Va., whose husband died in Iraq last year. The anti-war demonstrations “can affect the war in a really negative way. It gives the enemy hope.”
And arresting the most visible icon of the current protest wave doesn’t?
The next big cover-up
We all read the reports and heard on the news that dozens, maybe hundreds of people died in the Superdome after Katrina. I remember at one point a woman on TV was crying, saying that she counted several bodies in a pile. And there were reports of more than one suicide.
But, FEMA is today.
Were the numbers exaggerated as FEMA states (in fact, they say on 6 deaths in total), or is FEMA covering something up? I tend to believe that the numbers were exaggerated becasue we all know that the US has a sensationalist media, and I can understand people’s fears in a confusing time — no lights, no food, no water. I can see how reports can be ‘double-up’ and exaggerated. But part of me doesn’t want to believe FEMA. Have I been watching too much X-Files?
Ok, so let’s trade oil for education
This pisses me off. Where are the priorities??!??
Bush has hit the bottle again??
Bush: Iraq withdrawal would equal defeat
These comments from Bush come on the heels of a poll revealing that fewer than half think U.S. will win in Iraq
That story at:
http://www.cnn.com/2005/POLITICS/09/22/iraq.poll/
I remember telling my husband before the election that one the most frightening things about Bush being re-elected was the fact that he wouldn’t have the possibility of another term keeping his actions in check. I think that is where we find ourselves now. Nothing seems to alter his course in regards to the war in Iraq.
Bush: Iraq withdrawal would equal defeat
President defends war in Iraq as a terror deterrent while anti-war protesters gather for weekend rally
By Ken Herman
WASHINGTON BUREAU
Friday, September 23, 2005
WASHINGTON — President Bush said Thursday that withdrawing U.S. troops from Iraq, a course to be urged by tens of thousands of anti-war protesters gathering in Washington for a Saturday rally, would amount to a victory for terrorists.
“Withdrawing our troops would make the world more dangerous and make America less safe,” Bush said after a briefing at the Pentagon. “To leave Iraq now would be to repeat the costly mistakes of the past that led to the attacks of September the 11th, 2001.
“Our withdrawal from Iraq would allow the terrorists to claim a historic victory over the United States,” he said, adding that it would embolden terrorists and allow them to “dominate the Middle East and launch more attacks on America and other free nations.”
Bush’s comments came as anti-war protesters prepared for a weekend rally. On Wednesday, Cindy Sheehan, who became a focal point of the effort when she spent the summer near Bush’s Crawford ranch, delivered an anti-war message at the White House gate.
Remainder of story at:
http://www.statesman.com/news/content/a … d10b2.html
Bushs fantasy land !!
Harsh reality paints Bush into corner
Bob Herbert - New York Times
Friday, September 23, 2005
Maybe, just maybe, the public is beginning to see through the toxic fog of fantasy, propaganda and deliberate misrepresentation that has been such a hallmark of the George W. Bush administration, which is in danger of being judged by history as one of the worst of all time.
President Bush’s approval ratings have tanked as increasing numbers of Americans worry that their president, who seems to like nothing better than running off to his ranch to clear brush and ride his bike, may not be up to the job.
The most recent New York Times/CBS News Poll strongly indicated that the public — tired of the war-without-end in Iraq and dismayed by the federal response to the catastrophe in New Orleans — “has growing doubts about the president’s capacity to deal with pressing problems.”
A USA Today/CNN/Gallup Poll found for the first time that a majority of Americans do not see Bush as a strong and decisive leader. In an article in USA Today, Carroll Doherty of the nonpartisan Pew Research Center said of Bush: “He’s lost ground among independents. He seems to be starting to lose ground among his own party. And he lost the Democrats a long time ago.”
Reality is caving in on a president who was held aloft for so long by a combination of ideological mumbo-jumbo, the public relations legerdemain of Karl Rove and the buoyant patriotism that followed the Sept. 11 attacks. The Bush people were never big on reality, so sooner or later they were bound to be blindsided by it.
There was already a war going on when Katrina came to call. I’ve always believed that war is a serious matter. But the president was on vacation. Dick Cheney was on vacation. And Condi Rice was in New York, taking in the sights and shopping for shoes. That Americans were fighting and dying on foreign soil was not enough to demand their full attention. They were busy having fun. So it’s no wonder it took a good long while before they noticed that a whole section of America had been wiped out in a calamity of biblical proportions.
What Americans are finally catching onto is the utter incompetence of this crowd. And if we didn’t know before, we’re learning now, in the harshest possible ways, that incompetence has bitter consequences. The body count of Americans killed in Iraq has now passed 1,900, with many more deaths to come. But there’s still no strategy, no plan. The White House hasn’t the slightest clue about what to do. So the dying will continue.
Bush’s “Top Gun” moment aboard the aircraft carrier Abraham Lincoln was 2 1/2 years ago. It was another example of the president in fantasy land. The war was a botch from the beginning. Bush never sent enough troops to get the job done, and he never provided enough armor to protect the troops that he did send. Thin-skinned, the president got rid of anyone who had the temerity to suggest he might be wrong about some of the decisions he was making.
Here at home, even loyal Republicans are beginning to bail out on Bush’s fiendish willingness to shove the monumental costs of the federal government’s operations — including his war, his tax cuts and his promised reconstruction of the Gulf Coast — onto the unsuspecting backs of generations still to come.
There is a general sense now that things are falling apart. The economy was already faltering before Katrina hit. Gasoline prices are starting to undermine the standard of living of some Americans, and a full-blown home-heating-oil crisis could erupt this winter. The administration’s awful response to the agony of the Gulf Coast has left most Americans believing that we are not prepared to cope with a large terrorist attack. And Osama bin Laden is still at large.
This is what happens when voters choose a president because he seems like a nice guy, like someone who’d be fun at a barbecue or a ballgame. You’d never use that criterion when choosing a surgeon, or a pilot to fly your family across the country.
Bush will be at the helm of the ship of state for three more years, so we have no choice but to hang on. But the next time around, voters need to keep in mind that beyond the incessant yammering about left and right, big government and small, Democrats and Republicans, is a more immediate issue, and that’s competence.
Somebody please button the president’s shirt.
Islamic School of Sex? Error chagrins feds
http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/l … chool.html
i think it was done intentionally.
This is looking like a disaster alright. estimate damages in the 50 billion range.
Harlow, you’re still in Houston, right? How is everything going up till now? We see the images of traffic jams and abandoned coastal towns. Has Houston shut down?
Is Boxing Too Dangerous?
I happen to like the sport, but many people feel that it is too barbaric. Where do you fit in?
Boxer Dies From Injuries Sustained in Bout
Sep 22, 9:28 PM (ET)
By TIM DAHLBERG
LAS VEGAS (AP) - Boxer Leavander Johnson died Thursday from injuries sustained five days earlier in a lightweight title fight with Jesus Chavez.
The 35-year-old died at University Medical Center, where he had been hospitalized since being injured in the fight Saturday night at the MGM Grand hotel-casino.